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Florence
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Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants, Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time. It is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, from 1865 to 1871 the city was the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy. The Historic Centre of Florence attracts 13 million tourists each year and it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, the city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florences artistic and architectural heritage, it has been ranked by Forbes as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in 2008, the city had the 17th highest average income in Italy. Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe, the language spoken in the city during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as the Italian language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War and they similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European historys most important noble families, Lorenzo de Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century, Leo X, catherine de Medici married king Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future king Louis XIII, the Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de Medici in 1737. The Etruscans initially formed in 200 BC the small settlement of Fiesole and it was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century, Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to again and commerce prospered
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Fresco
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Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. Buon fresco pigment mixed with water of temperature on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster. Because of the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster, after a number of hours, many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name also used to refer to these under-paintings. Later, new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, if the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion. This area is called the giornata, and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, if mistakes have been made, it may also be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, the eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark outlining of his central figures within his frescoes, in a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has fallen off. One of the first painters in the period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist, a secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster. The pigments thus require a medium, such as egg. Blue was a problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli. By the end of the century this had largely displaced buon fresco
3.
Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood
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The Funerary Monument to Sir John Hawkwood is a fresco by Paolo Uccello, commemorating English condottiero John Hawkwood, commissioned in 1436 for Florences Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. The fresco is an important example of art commemorating a soldier-for-hire who fought in the Italian peninsula and is a work in the development of perspective. The politics of the commissioning and recommissioning of the fresco have been analyzed and debated by historians, the fresco is the oldest extant and authenticated work of Uccello, from a relatively well-known aspect of his career compared to the periods before and after its creation. The fresco has been restored and is now detached from the wall, Hawkwood had a long military career and a complicated relationship with Florence. He fought for England during the Hundred Years War and then with the Great Company which had harassed the Avignon Papacy, Hawkwood and the White Company remained in Italy, accepting money from many city-states, both to wage war and to refrain from it. Hawkwood also received a 600 florin annual salary for the five years. Hawkwood married Donnina, the daughter of Bernabò Visconti, in 1377. In that same year he defected to Florence, Hawkwoods 1377 massacre at Cesena during the twilight of his papal employment in the War of the Eight Saints continues to tarnish his legacy. However, Hawkwood was the de facto commander-in-chief of Florences military from 1377 until immediately prior to his death in 1394, Hawkwood, now in his seventies, made preparations to return to England, where he had been sending money to acquire land, and set up a chantry. Just as he was liquidating his affairs in Italy, he died, Florence acquiesced to Richard IIs request in a June 3,1395 letter, Our devotion can deny nothing to the eminence of your highness. We will leave nothing undone that is possible to do, so that we may fulfill your good pleasure, nevertheless, according to the tenor of your request, we freely concede permission that his remains shall return to their native land. In any case, the monument would have run into difficulty. In the Quattrocento, it was traditional for condottieri like Hawkwood to be buried in major public churches, tibertino Brandolino was interred at San Francesco in Venice, Jacopo de Cavalli at SS. Holding ever more lavish funeral ceremonies for fallen condottieri was only one way in which Italian city-states competed with other to attract the services of the most skilled mercenaries. Hawkwoods funeral was sandwiched between the funerals in Siena of Giovanni dAzzo degli Ubaldini—who had been poisoned by the Florentines in the Visconti wars—and Giovanni Tedesco da Pietramala and it was unprecedented for the Signoria to vote to erect a monument to a living person in the cathedral. The ambiguous plans of the Signoria—which likely was aware of Hawkwoods health status—might well have been for a rather than a cenotaph, Hawkwood died soon after. Painters Agnolo Gaddi and Giuliano Arrighi were selected by a committee to directly onto the Duomo wall models for the Hawkwood. Although neither tomb was realized, documentary evidence suggests that a painting of Hawkwood—with a figure of Hawkwood by Gaddi, the fresco probably came to replace the tomb, maybe for reasons of expedience and frugality, although there is little documentary evidence on this regard
4.
The Battle of San Romano
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The Battle of San Romano is a set of three paintings by the Florentine painter Paolo Uccello depicting events that took place at the Battle of San Romano between Florentine and Sienese forces in 1432. They are significant as revealing the development of perspective in early Italian Renaissance painting. The paintings are in egg tempera on wooden panels, each over 3 metres long, according to the National Gallery, London, the panels were commissioned by a member of the Bartolini Salimbeni family in Florence sometime between 1435 and 1460. The paintings were admired in the 15th century, Lorenzo de Medici so coveted them that he purchased one and had the remaining two forcibly removed to the Palazzo Medici. They are now divided between three collections, the National Gallery, the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, and the Musée du Louvre, Paris. The three paintings are, The Uffizi panel was designed to be the central painting of the triptych and is the only one signed by the artist. The sequence most widely agreed among art historians is, London, Uffizi, Louvre and they may represent different times of day, dawn, mid-day and dusk – the battle lasted eight hours. In the London painting, Niccolò da Tolentino, with his large gold and red patterned hat, is seen leading the Florentine cavalry. He had a reputation for recklessness, and doesnt even wear a helmet, in the foreground, broken lances and a dead soldier are carefully aligned into orthogonals, so as to create an impression of perspective. Similar to that of a tapestry, the landscape rises up in a plane as opposed to receding deeply into space. This illusion of a backdrop and a theme resembling a stage. Many areas of the paintings were covered with gold and silver leaf, the original impression of the burnished silver would have been dazzling. All of the paintings, especially that in the Louvre, have suffered from time and early restoration, the panels were a subject in the BBC series The Private Life of a Masterpiece,2005. The dark horse in the Louvre panel, mounted by Micheletto Attendolo, can be painted in a tapestry. In the 4th Episode of the 2011 TV Series The Borgias, starn, Randolph and Loren Partridge, Representing war in the Renaissance, The shield of Paolo Uccello, Representations, No
5.
Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
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Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
7.
Perspective (graphical)
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Perspective in the graphic arts is an approximate representation, on a flat surface, of an image as it is seen by the eye. If viewed from the spot as the windowpane was painted. Each painted object in the scene is thus a flat, scaled down version of the object on the side of the window. All perspective drawings assume the viewer is a distance away from the drawing. Objects are scaled relative to that viewer, an object is often not scaled evenly, a circle often appears as an ellipse and a square can appear as a trapezoid. This distortion is referred to as foreshortening, Perspective drawings have a horizon line, which is often implied. This line, directly opposite the viewers eye, represents objects infinitely far away and they have shrunk, in the distance, to the infinitesimal thickness of a line. It is analogous to the Earths horizon, any perspective representation of a scene that includes parallel lines has one or more vanishing points in a perspective drawing. A one-point perspective drawing means that the drawing has a vanishing point, usually directly opposite the viewers eye. All lines parallel with the line of sight recede to the horizon towards this vanishing point. This is the standard receding railroad tracks phenomenon, a two-point drawing would have lines parallel to two different angles. Any number of vanishing points are possible in a drawing, one for each set of lines that are at an angle relative to the plane of the drawing. Perspectives consisting of parallel lines are observed most often when drawing architecture. In contrast, natural scenes often do not have any sets of parallel lines, the only method to indicate the relative position of elements in the composition was by overlapping, of which much use is made in works like the Parthenon Marbles. Chinese artists made use of perspective from the first or second century until the 18th century. It is not certain how they came to use the technique, some authorities suggest that the Chinese acquired the technique from India, oblique projection is also seen in Japanese art, such as in the Ukiyo-e paintings of Torii Kiyonaga. This was detailed within Aristotles Poetics as skenographia, using flat panels on a stage to give the illusion of depth, the philosophers Anaxagoras and Democritus worked out geometric theories of perspective for use with skenographia. Alcibiades had paintings in his house designed using skenographia, so this art was not confined merely to the stage, Euclids Optics introduced a mathematical theory of perspective, but there is some debate over the extent to which Euclids perspective coincides with the modern mathematical definition
8.
Giorgio Vasari
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Vasari was born in Arezzo, Tuscany. Recommended at an age by his cousin Luca Signorelli, he became a pupil of Guglielmo da Marsiglia. He was befriended by Michelangelo whose painting style would influence his own, in 1529, he visited Rome where he studied the works of Raphael and other artists of the Roman High Renaissance. Vasaris own Mannerist paintings were admired in his lifetime than afterwards. In 1547 he completed the hall of the chancery in Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome with frescoes that received the name Sala dei Cento Giorni and he was consistently employed by members of the Medici family in Florence and Rome, and worked in Naples, Arezzo and other places. He also helped to organize the decoration of the Studiolo, now reassembled in the Palazzo Vecchio, aside from his career as a painter, Vasari was also successful as an architect. In Florence, Vasari also built the long passage, now called Vasari Corridor, the enclosed corridor passes alongside the River Arno on an arcade, crosses the Ponte Vecchio and winds around the exterior of several buildings. He also renovated the medieval churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce, at both he removed the original rood screen and loft, and remodelled the retro-choirs in the Mannerist taste of his time. In Santa Croce, he was responsible for the painting of The Adoration of the Magi which was commissioned by Pope Pius V in 1566 and it was recently restored, before being put on exhibition in 2011 in Rome and in Naples. Eventually it is planned to return it to the church of Santa Croce in Bosco Marengo, in 1562 Vasari built the octagonal dome on the Basilica of Our Lady of Humility in Pistoia, an important example of high Renaissance architecture. In Rome, Vasari worked with Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola and Bartolomeo Ammanati at Pope Julius IIIs Villa Giulia, the Lives also included a novel treatise on the technical methods employed in the arts. The book was rewritten and enlarged in 1568, with the addition of woodcut portraits of artists. The work has a consistent and notorious bias in favour of Florentines, and tends to attribute to them all the developments in Renaissance art – for example, Venetian art in particular, is systematically ignored in the first edition. Between the first and second editions, Vasari visited Venice and while the edition gave more attention to Venetian art. Vasaris biographies are interspersed with amusing gossip, with a few exceptions, however, Vasaris aesthetic judgement was acute and unbiased. He did not research archives for exact dates, as art historians do, and naturally his biographies are most dependable for the painters of his own generation. Modern criticism – with new materials opened up by research – has corrected many of his traditional dates and attributions. Vasari includes a sketch of his own biography at the end of the Lives, according to the historian Richard Goldthwaite, Vasari was one of the earliest authors to use the term competition in its economic sense
9.
International Gothic
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International Gothic is a period of Gothic art which initially developed in Burgundy, France and northern Italy in the late 14th and early 15th century. It then spread widely across Western Europe, hence the name for the period. The main influences were northern France, the Duchy of Burgundy, the Imperial court in Prague, royal marriages such as that between Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia helped to spread the style. It was initially a style of courtly sophistication, but somewhat more robust versions spread to art commissioned by the mercantile classes. Usage of the terms by art historians varies somewhat, with using the term more restrictively than others. Some art historians feel the term is in many ways, since it tends to skate over both differences and details of transmission. The important Bohemian version of the style developed in the court of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor in Prague, which for a brief period became a leading force in the development of European art. Charles came from the Luxembourg dynasty, was tutored by the future Pope Clement VI, the Bohemian style initially lacked the elongated figures of other centres, but had a richness and sweetness in female figures that were very influential. Charles had at least one Italian altarpiece, apparently made in Italy and sent to Prague, for St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, he first used a French architect, and then the German Peter Parler. As the style developed in Northern Europe, Italian artists were in turn influenced by it, from this period come the earliest surviving panel portraits of monarchs, and royal manuscripts show a greatly increased number of realistic portraits of the monarch who commissioned them. In painting and sculpture, the style is known in German as the Schöne Stil or Weicher Stil. Stylistic features are a dignified elegance, which replaces monumentality, along with rich decorative colouring, elongated figures and it also makes a more practised use of perspective, modelling, and setting. Figures begin to be more space in their settings, and interest is taken in realistically depicted plants. In some works, above all the calendar scenes of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Decoration became increasingly ornate as the style developed in Northern Europe, claus Sluter was the leading sculptor in Burgundy, and was one artist able to use the style with a strongly monumental effect. Most sculptors are unknown, and the style tended to survive longer in Northern sculpture than painting, smaller painted wood figures, most often of the Madonna, were significant, and being relatively portable, probably helped to disseminate the style across Europe. In Burgundy Jean Malouel, Melchior Broederlam and Henri Bellechose were succeeded by Robert Campin, master Bertram and Conrad von Soest were leading regional masters in Germany, working largely for city burghers. Surviving panel paintings of the best quality from before 1390 are very rare except from Italy, many of these artists moved between countries or regions during their careers, exposing them to the styles of other centres
10.
Barber
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A barber is a person whose occupation is mainly to cut, dress, groom, style and shave mens and boys hair. A barbers place of work is known as a shop or a barbers. Barber shops are also places of social interaction and public discourse, in some instances, barbershops are also public forums. They are the locations of open debates, voicing public concerns and they were also influential in helping shape male identity. In previous times, barbers performed surgery and dentistry. With the development of safety razors and the prevalence of beards, in English-speaking cultures. In modern times, the barber is used both as a professional title and to refer to hairdressers who specialize in mens hair. Historically, all hairdressers were considered barbers, in the 20th century, the profession of cosmetology branched off from barbering, and today hairdressers may be licensed as either barbers or cosmetologists. Barbers differ with respect to where they work, which services they are licensed to provide, part of this terminology difference depends on the regulations in a given location. Different states in the US vary on their labor and licensing laws, for example, in Maryland, a cosmetologist cannot use a straight razor, strictly reserved for barbers. In Australia, the term for a barber is hairdresser, barber is only a popular title for mens hairdressers. Most would work in a hairdressing salon, the barbers trade has a long history, razors have been found among relics of the Bronze Age in Egypt. In ancient Egyptian culture, barbers were highly respected individuals, priests and men of medicine are the earliest recorded examples of barbers. Men in Ancient Greece would have their beards, hair, and fingernails trimmed and styled by the κουρεύς, in an agora which also served as a gathering for debates. Barbering was introduced to Rome by the Greek colonies in Sicily in 296 BC, starting from the Middle Ages, barbers often served as surgeons and dentists. In addition to haircutting, hairdressing, and shaving, barbers performed surgery, bloodletting and leeching, fire cupping, enemas, the barber pole, featuring red and white spiraling stripes, symbolized different aspects of the craft. Barbers received higher pay than surgeons until surgeons were entered into British warships during naval wars, some of the duties of the barber included neck manipulation, cleansing of ears and scalp, draining of boils, fistula and lancing of cysts with wicks. Barbershops were influential at the turn of the 19th century as African American businesses that helped to develop African American culture and economy
11.
Donatello
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Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, better known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance sculptor from Florence. He worked with stone, bronze, wood, clay, stucco and wax, and had several assistants, with four perhaps being a typical number. Though his best-known works were mostly statues in the round, he developed a new, very shallow, type of bas-relief for small works, and a good deal of his output was larger architectural reliefs. Donatello was the son of Niccolò di Betto Bardi, who was a member of the Florentine Arte della Lana, Donatello was educated in the house of the Martelli family. He apparently received his artistic training in a goldsmiths workshop. While undertaking study and excavations with Filippo Brunelleschi in Rome, work that gained the two men the reputation of treasure seekers, Donatello made a living by working at goldsmiths shops. In 1409–1411 he executed the colossal seated figure of Saint John the Evangelist, which until 1588 occupied a niche of the old cathedral façade and this work marks a decisive step forward from late Gothic Mannerism in the search for naturalism and the rendering of human feelings. The face, the shoulders and the bust are still idealized, while the hands, in 1411–13, Donatello worked on a statue of St. Mark for the guild church of Orsanmichele. In 1417 he completed the Saint George for the Confraternity of the Cuirass-makers, the elegant St. George and the Dragon relief on the statues base, executed in schiacciato is one of the first examples of central-point perspective in sculpture. From 1423 is the Saint Louis of Toulouse for the Orsanmichele, Donatello had also sculpted the classical frame for this work, which remains, while the statue was moved in 1460 and replaced by Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Verrocchio. Between 1415 and 1426, Donatello created five statues for the campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, also known as the Duomo. These works are the Beardless Prophet, Bearded Prophet, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Habbakuk, and Jeremiah, from the late teens is the Pazzi Madonna relief in Berlin. In 1425, he executed the notable Crucifix for Santa Croce, this work portrays Christ in a moment of the agony, eyes and mouth partially opened, the body contracted in an ungraceful posture. From 1425 to 1427, Donatello collaborated with Michelozzo on the monument of the Antipope John XXIII for the Battistero in Florence. Donatello made the recumbent bronze figure of the deceased, under a shell, in 1427, he completed in Pisa a marble relief for the funerary monument of Cardinal Rainaldo Brancacci at the church of SantAngelo a Nilo in Naples. In the same period, he executed the relief of the Feast of Herod, the relief is mostly in stiacciato, with the foreground figures are done in bas-relief. Around 1430, Cosimo de Medici, the foremost art patron of his era and this is now Donatellos most famous work, and the first known free-standing nude statue produced since antiquity. Also from this period is the disquietingly small Love-Atys, housed in the Bargello, some have perceived the David as having homo-erotic qualities, and have argued that this reflected the artists own orientation
12.
Francis of Assisi
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Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, informally named as Francesco, was an Italian Roman Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the mens Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of Saint Clare, the Third Order of Saint Francis, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history. Pope Gregory IX canonized Francis on 16 July 1228, along with Saint Catherine of Siena, he was designated Patron saint of Italy. In 1219, he went to Egypt in an attempt to convert the Sultan to put an end to the conflict of the Crusades, by this point, the Franciscan Order had grown to such an extent that its primitive organizational structure was no longer sufficient. He returned to Italy to organize the Order, once his community was authorized by the Pope, he withdrew increasingly from external affairs. Francis is also known for his love of the Eucharist, in 1223, Francis arranged for the first Christmas live nativity scene. He died during the hours of 3 October 1226, while listening to a reading he had requested of Psalm 142. Pietro was in France on business when Francis was born in Assisi, upon his return to Assisi, Pietro took to calling his son Francesco, possibly in honor of his commercial success and enthusiasm for all things French. Since the child was renamed in infancy, the change can hardly have had anything to do with his aptitude for learning French, as some have thought. While going off to war in 1202, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, in 1205, Francis left for Apulia to enlist in the army of Walter III, Count of Brienne. Francis lived the high-spirited life typical of a young man. In 1201, he joined an expedition against Perugia and was taken as a prisoner at Collestrada. It is possible that his conversion was a gradual process rooted in this experience. Upon his return to Assisi in 1203, Francis returned to his carefree life, in 1204, a serious illness led him to a spiritual crisis. A strange vision made him return to Assisi, deepening his ecclesiastical awakening, on a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peters Basilica, an experience that moved him to live in poverty. Francis returned home, began preaching on the streets, and soon gathered followers and his Order was authorized by Pope Innocent III in 1210. He then founded the Order of Poor Clares, which became a religious order for women. As a youth, Francesco became a devotee of troubadours and was fascinated with all things Transalpine, in this account, he was selling cloth and velvet in the marketplace on behalf of his father when a beggar came to him and asked for alms
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Uccello". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "
